Tag: Bells on Danforth

Two roads, one day

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The first ever Bells on Danforth ride pauses at Pape.

Mid-afternoon on Saturday: The first ever Bells on Danforth ride pauses at Pape.

 

Lakeshore Road outside Newcastle, Ontario.

Early evening on Saturday: Lakeshore Road outside Newcastle.

Saturday was a day of contrasts and lots of fun bike riding. In the morning, I was helping to set up the skills course for the Ward 35 bike rodeo in Scarborough. By mid-afternoon, I was cycling to Queen’s Park very slowly with 90 other cyclists as part of the inaugural Bells on Danforth ride. And in the early evening, I was pedalling down a virtually deserted Lakeshore Road on Lake Ontario between Newcastle and Port Hope. After cycling out of Newcastle and before arriving on the main drag of Port Hope 90 minutes later, I encountered a scant eleven cars and three pedestrians—and none at all of either for a full 45-minute stretch. With the sun finally peeking out from the clouds for the last half hour of my ride, it was the perfect way to unwind from a long day of good cycling and lousy weather.

Bike Month

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Most people who read this blog will already know that Bike Month kicks off on Monday with the Group Commute to City Hall. But you may not know about two other biking activities taking place in June that I’m helping to organize through my work with Ward 29 Bikes:

  • Bells on Danforth. Inspired by Bells on Bloor, Bells on Danforth will be a fun—and with luck, huge—group ride on Saturday, June 2 from East Lynn Park (south side of Danforth, one block west of Woodbine) to Queen’s Park for the Cycle and Sole rally. We’ve been talking about organizing this ride for years and we finally got it off the ground this year by joining forces with the other east end cycling groups—32 Spokes, SoDa Bikes, and DECA Bikes—along with a lot of help and advice from Peter Low of Bells on Bloor. We have no real idea how many people to expect on the inaugural ride but I’m hoping for at least 200.
  • Thursday night rides. At Ward 29 Bikes, we’ve also talked about running social rides for almost as long as we’ve been around (since 2008!) but we’ve never quite gotten around to actually doing it until this year. We’ve organized a slate of four rides on Thursday evenings in June, leaving from the East York Community Centre and tootling around various parts of the city for 90-120 minutes. I’m hoping for 10-20 people on each ride. I’ll be on all of them, so set aside a couple of hours on one Thursday in June if you’ve ever wanted to heckle me in person.